Make it Better
by Sam.J.Eller
Summary: Dean will always be there to make it better for Sammy.


_I pulled the Impala outside of Sammy's school and put it in park. I was content to sit there as long as was needed because it was a nice day and I was relaxing in my baby. I had just gotten her a few months back and was still having a difficult time believing the old man gave her over. Of course I had dreamed of driving the Impala the day I turned 16, but owning her? I could barely imagine such a circumstance. So if I had to sit outside my little brother's school and bask in the glory of owning such a beautiful vehicle for a little while, that was more than okay with me. _

_The bell rang and the building began to empty, I was immediately scanning the crowds for Sam, knowing that spotting him was going to be difficult because the kid was such a squirt. Grade 8 and my brother was still the smallest kid in all his classes in all the different schools he had attended so far this year. I sat there thinking of ways to fatten up the younger boy when I noticed the mass exodus of children had ended and only the stragglers were exiting the building at this point. I missed the days Sam used to come bounding out of school, smile on his face and homework in his hand. The older Sam got, the less he enjoyed school; he still loved the learning, loved to read and do his homework, (something I would never understand), but he hated that all his peers were growing and he didn't seem to be, hated being the smallest, and realized the older you get the harder it is to make friends and be accepted every time he switched schools. _

_It got even harder for him a couple of years ago when I moved on to high school and he was still stuck in elementary. I pretended it was no big deal, hoping that he would adopt that attitude and stop worrying so damn much, but it didn't work. My plan backfired actually, because my pretending us being in different schools was no big deal only resulted in Sammy thinking that I didn't want him hanging out with me; a thought that I had terminated the moment I had discovered it was forming in my baby brother's mind. Because my god did that kid have it all wrong, I was horrified that I was leaving him alone in school, no one to watch his back and his front; no one to make sure kids weren't shoving him in to lockers or taking his stuff, no one to make sure he ate his lunch and had fun at recess. Back when the kid first started school I had had a hard enough time leaving Sammy alone in his own classroom let alone in an entire building. Something which I had been forced to explain to my little brother so he would understand that I always wanted him around, the entire situation had ended with one giant chick-flick moment._

_I glanced back at the school biting my lip as I restlessly tapped my fingers on the steering wheel, Sammy should be out by now, I wouldn't mind waiting if I knew what he was doing, but I didn't, so now I was getting nervous. I had my hand on the door handle ready to go searching when I saw the school doors open and my little brother step out and begin trudging down the front steps. _

_The kid looked miserable; his book bag dangled from one of his hunched shoulders, his straggly brown hair was hanging down in front of his face as he stared intently down at his shoes, and he was dragging his feet across the gravel as he slowly made his way to the Impala. I watched closely as Sam carefully opened the door and slid into the seat, gently pulling the door closed behind him once he got his backpack situated on the floor at his feet. I smiled, appreciating how cautiously Sammy had treated the Impala since I had acquired her, partly because he knew I would kick his ass if he messed up my baby, and partly because finally being able to ride shot-gun had brought about a whole new love for my girl. My smile faded quickly, because watching my little brother stare sullenly down at his lap as he nervously fiddled with his hands brought me no joy whatsoever._

"_Bad day?" I asked, failing to hide my slight concern. _

"_Something like that." Sam responded in a whisper. _

_My little brother's response racked my concern up to a whole new level, I had been ready for an angry remark, or a sarcastic comment, or even a simple no. I had not been prepared for such a defeated statement, it tore at my heart. _

"_What happened?" I questioned, staring at my little brother patiently, waiting for him to speak, or give me some eye-contact, or something. Instead all I got was a slight shrug, which did nothing to ease my worry. _

"_Come on Sam, don't make me beat it out of ya." I joked, hoping to pull some sort of reaction from the kid. _

"_I think I've been beat enough for one day." Sammy muttered solemnly._

"_What?" I was shocked, and angry, had some jackass been beating on my baby brother? _

"_Sammy, what do you mean you've been beat on enough? Did somebody put their hands on you?" I pushed for an answer after getting no response. _

"_It's okay Dean, it's not a big deal." Sam stated, I rolled my eyes, can't believe the kid thought for one second that that lame response would deter me. _

"_Sam, I'm not starting this car until you tell me what's going on." I announced, turning my body even further in my brother's direction, letting him know that I was dead serious. _

"_Car?" Came the quiet response. _

"_What?" _

"_You never call the Impala a 'car'." I smirked because it was true and I could just barely sense some lightness in my little brother's tone. _

"_Ya well she'll forgive me, besides I'm a little distracted trying to figure out what the hell is going on with my little brother." I replied with ease, but purpose, being sure Sam understood that no off-handed remark was going to distract me. _

"_Really Dean, I'm fine." Sam replied with a little more conviction in his tone, but I still was not satisfied. _

"_Ya? Look me in the eye and try saying that again." I was desperate to see my brother's face and I also knew that kid had a very hard time lying when he was looking right into my eyes. _

_Slowly but surely Sammy turned his head my direction and lifted his face to meet my eyes, which was hardly possible past all that hair. The minute I caught a glimpse of the young face before me I felt furry rush through my body. The swelling of Sam's right eye and the remnants of blood smeared under his nose were enough to make me practically vibrate with rage. _

"_Son of a bitch!" I barked, firmly, but carefully, grabbing a hold of my little brother's chin and angling his face further up so that I could get a better look. I gently moved his bangs out of his face so I could better examine the discolouration of Sam's eye._

"_What the hell happened Sammy? Who did this to you?" I demanded, trying to soften my harsh tone to keep from frightening the kid. _

"_It's nothing Dean." Sam whined, trying to turn his head away, an action I was not allowing as I tightened my grip on his chin and placed my other hand on the back of his neck. _

"_This is not nothing Sam! Somebody using your face as a punching bag is not nothing!" I seethed. _

"_A punching bag? I only got hit a couple times, okay? Don't be dramatic." Sam sighed, rolling his eyes. _

"_Dramatic? You want to see dramatic? Dramatic is what I am going to do to the asshole that messed up your face." I replied, anger rising. _

"_It's okay Dean." Sam replied with a smirk, "The kid got suspended alright? It has been dealt with, so you don't need to go all Rambo on anybody." _

_I was tempted to relax as my brother's dimply smile made a brief appearance, but the swelling and colouring of his eye and blood on his face stole any relief from the situation. _

"_Come on Sammy, just tell me what happened." I said softly, knowing that quiet requests, rather than harsh orders were always more effective when it came to dealing with Sam; and just in case my soft tone wasn't enough, I used the one phrase that I knew would seal the deal. _

"_Please Sammy." I nearly whispered, imploring the kid to speak by allowing my anger to fade and my worry to show through. _

"_Want to know what happened Dean?" I nodded, slightly unsure about Sam's new demeanor as he aggressively pulled his chin from my hand. "The same thing that always happens, the same thing that has been happening in every town, at every school, for years. The new kid getting beat on!" Sam was glaring at me now, I knew his anger was more about his frustration with the way we lived than about me, but the look I was getting still made me uncomfortable. Sammy was so very rarely angry with me; I almost didn't know how to react. Surprisingly I didn't need to come up with something to say or a look to give because Sam wasn't done yet. _

"_I walked outside for recess and picked a spot out at the edge of the playground to eat lunch, didn't even have time to pull my sandwich out of my backpack before there were these 3 guys standing over me. They started mocking me, you know, all the classic new kid jabs. You're on our turf, where the hell did you come from, did you get your clothes from the dump, you look like a girl, yadda yadda yadda." _

_I cringed at the nonchalant way in which Sammy listed all the horrible things those assholes had said to him, but agreeing that they were nothing that neither of us hadn't heard before... except the looking like a girl one, cause my hair was never half as long as Sam's. _

"_I guess eventually they got tired of being ignored and one of them made a grab for my backpack. I figured they would just end up dumping it all on the ground and walk away, so I wasn't going to worry about it, but then I remembered my butterfly knife and the book of Latin exorcisms dad wanted me to memorize were in there, so I grabbed it back from them. They shoved me up against the tree I had been sitting near, but I still wouldn't let my bag go, we played tug of war for a while and then eventually they ripped the strap right off." I looked down to the bag at Sam's feat and immediately confirmed there was only one shoulder strap remaining on the back-pack. "I guess they figured wrecking my bag was good enough because they stopped going after it and started going after me. I got a couple hits in, but there were three of them and they were all bigger than me..." Sam trailed off, looking nervously down at his lap, taking a deep breath before he looked back up again, not at me, but out the front windshield, where he'd been directing his gaze since he began to tell me about his day. _

"_Anyways, a teacher showed up, I guess some little kid had seen the whole thing; the boys were taken to the principal's office and I got sent to the school nurse. Took me awhile to convince them I was fine and they didn't need to call anyone, and by the time I got back to class everyone was talking about how the 3 boys got suspended." _

"_You could have had them call me you know." I said after Sammy completed his story, wanting him to know that even though Dad was rarely an option (not that Sammy would ever call him if he was), I was always there to answer his call. _

"_You would have been in class Dean." Sam sighed, glancing my way. _

"_Ya, maybe, but I still have my phone on and I would have come Sammy, I'll always come!" I insisted, needing my baby brother to understand this. _

"_I know Dean, but I was fine." _

"_But if you weren't, you need to call me. If you are ever not okay, you can call me! It doesn't have to be a big deal, it could be a broken fingernail for all I care, just know whenever you need me you can just call." _

"_I will Dean, I promise." Sam said, a shy smile crossing his features. I nodded in response, satisfied that my little brother was being honest. _

"_Alright, so some morons threw a few punches, and while I fully intend to rip their lungs out, this is nothing we haven't dealt with before, so why does it seem to be hitting you so much harder than usual?" I questioned. _

"_It's not hitting me harder; I told you I was fine! I mean geeze you're the one making a big deal about this I didn't want to bring it up, you forced me to..."_

"_Whoah, whoah, Sam it's alright, I know I'm the one dragging all this out and you were perfectly fine with letting it go." I declared, trying to get my little brother off the defensive. "What I mean is that usually when this stuff happens you're angry, or frustrated, and sometimes sad, but you aren't normally so..." I stalled, not able to come up with the right word for it. _

"_So what?" Sam asked, still coming off quite defensive. _

"_I don't know, so distressed, or defeated...or something." _

"_I'm just tired alright? Tired of all the different towns, and schools, and... and bullies." Sam stated quietly. _

"_I know Sammy, but none of that's new either, you sure there wasn't something else that happened today?" I asked, trying desperately to get to the bottom of this, knowing that if I didn't this kid would just keep it all to himself and let it fester. _

"_Oh, cause getting beat on wasn't enough?" Sam asked incredulously. _

"_Come on dude, you know that's not what I mean, I just feel like there's something else that you're not telling me." I placated. _

_There were a couple minutes of silence, during which, I patiently stared at Sam, and he directed his gaze at everything except me. Eventually my kid brother let out a long sigh, which had to be like the 4__th__ one of the day, and began to speak. _

"_Nobody would talk to me." He said it so quietly I almost didn't catch it. _

"_Why?" I wondered aloud, Sam may have always been the victim of bullies, but he's a nice quiet kid and never used to have a problem making friends, something that had become harder the older he got, but he still always seemed to manage making an acquaintance or two. _

"_Apparently the 3 guys that fought with me were like the most popular kids in the 8__th__ grade, everybody loved them; so when word got around that I got them suspended everybody hated me." Sam explained. _

"_I'm sure everybody didn't hate you." I reasoned. _

"_No, Dean, they did! Everyone in class glared at me, and the person I was seated beside asked to move, nobody would speak to me. And when I was walking down the halls to come out to the Impala, a bunch of the kids from my class kept following me, shoving and tripping me; I didn't want to cause any more trouble, so I just waited in the bathroom until they all left." _

_My heart broke when I saw the tears streaming down my baby brother's face and watched as he bit down hard on his bottom lip to keep it from trembling. _

"_I just... I just wanted them to like me!" Sammy pleaded, his voice breaking and hiccupping sobs following his heart-wrenching comment. _

_I had nothing to say that could fix this, I couldn't beat up an entire grade... although I was very tempted to try, and I couldn't go back in time and erase this entire disaster of a day. So I did the only thing I could think to do at the time, I reached across and pulled my hurting little brother into my arms, running my fingers through his shaggy hair, and rubbing my hand up and down his back as he cried into my shirt. _

_We sat there like that for quite some time, Sam trying to control his sobs and me holding him close and whispering comforting nonsense into his ear. Soon we hit the hiccup stage, at which point I know that the kid has run out of tears. A moment or two later the young boy who was cocooned in me, begins to pull away and wipe fiercely at his eyes, sniffing a couple of times before he looks up to meet my face. I gave him a soft reassuring smile, the kind that I reserve solely for my Sammy and nobody else. _

_Observing Sam's tear-stained face I see that there is still traces of blood under his nose; I immediately reach to the back seat and grab one of the water bottles we keep back there, having no tissues or napkins to use, I simply poor some of the water onto my sleeve and use it to wipe the blood off my baby brother's face. When I have cleaned the kid up a bit I put the lid back on the water and throw it behind me, soon returning my gaze to Sam. _

"_How about we go buy you a new bag, and then maybe hit a diner for some supper?" I ask, desperate to make my little brother's day better, even if that means sacrificing some of the little cash we have left. _

"_Dad only left us $40 Dean, we should really just eat some of the groceries he left at the motel." Sam explained. I should have known the little bugger would consider our finances. _

"_Beans again? Sorry Sammy, I don't think I can handle that. I am dying for a burger man, and you're going to need a new bag so we might as well just go out." _

"_I can do with my bag for now, there's still one shoulder strap left." Sam insisted. _

"_Sam, it's broken, besides you have been using the same crappy backpack since you were in grade 3, I'm thinking it's about time for an upgrade. So we'll go pick you up a new bag, with the marks you get you've earned it; and then we are going out for some real food that isn't from a can, because I've earned it." Sam looks like he is about to interrupt, no doubt to inform me of our financial situation, but I continue before he has the chance. "And on the off-chance that we need some more funds later in the week I'll just put those fake id's to use and go hustle up some cash. Sound like a plan?" I asked, thrilled inside when I saw a smile invade my kid's bruised, tear-stained face. _

"_Sounds like a plan." He exclaimed with a winning grin. _

"_Good." _

_By the end of the day Sam had a new green backpack and we were both filled up with good food and some pie I decided was necessary for the evening. I looked over at Sam, who was sleeping snuggled up to my side on the couch as some lame action movie played on the ancient motel television. I reveled moments like these, my little brother getting to old to seek comfort the way that he used to, now searching for comfort verbally rather than physically; but when the kid was upset, injured, or sleeping he tended to resort to his more childish self. I moved Sammy's bangs from his face, examining once more the darkening bruise covering his swelled eye, marring his innocent features. I found myself desperately trying to swallow down the anger and rage that kept attempting to take over. How come this kid could never catch a break? Especially when he was more deserving than anyone else I had ever known. _

"_It will get better Sammy." I promised as I stared down at the small boy, who always seemed to be a victim of the world's arbitrary cruelty. _

"_It will get better, and if it doesn't, I will always be around to make it better, I promise." That was the vow I made that night, one I have tried desperately to uphold ever since, because I can't control what the universe throws in my little brother's direction, but if I can take the hit instead of him, I will and if I can't I will always be there to catch him before he falls, and make it better. _

_Sammy deserves better, and as his big brother, it is my job to do everything in my power to give that kid the best life I possibly can. There are no sacrifices I wouldn't make to make it better for my Sammy. _


End file.
